i´m searching about thje creator of the tecnique of split fan of cards in manipulation act, this mean make a fan and slip another when you drop the firth fan, te clasic tecnique, may be thuston makes this tecnique but no shure if is earlier tecnique. Thank you

I swear I read somewhere it was Paul Le Paul. One moment please and I will check.I have been and I have seen. Alas I was wrong but almost right. He was one of the first to use it professionally but he didn't invent it. He found it described in a British manuscript published it 1916. A vague description but a description nevertheless.

I have no idea which manuscript it was. My psychic powers are limited I am afraid. By all means start an Erdnase type thread about it. At least it might fill up 200 or so pages.

No, Harmington is credited with having invented the Back Palm, as early as 1895. The origin of the Split Fan (which, of course, makes use of the Back Palm) is subject to multiple claims. Dai Vernon was quite insistent that the Split Fan was invented by a carnival contortionist named Ardo the Frogman.

The most believable credit I have heard is Cardini having invented it. Buckley claims that he came up with it in, I think, Principles and Deceptions.

The notion that Cardini invented it rings true because he does not do what everyone else who followed did. Watch the footage of his act from the late 1950s and you will see what I mean. The idea that everyone who followed him copied what he did without understanding the subtlety of the action and intention also makes sense.

"The first time I ever saw Split Fans, which was before I ever met Cardini and probably before Channing Pollack was even born, was shown to me by a fellow named Ardo the Frog man. He was an Australian contortionist who dressed like a frog and acted like a frog all through the act, but his hobby was magic. He did split Fans and I had never seen them before. This was in Chicago in 1919. It's possible that the move originated in Australia, because I knew quite a few very fine card men in New York and none of them had ever seen or even heard about this move." Dai Vernon ~ December 1969

I believe Vernon was telling the truth when he wrote this.

Thirteen years later, on the Revelations videos, he goes into more detail about how he came to know Ardo and came to be shown the split fans. You can tell from watching the tape that he did in fact know Ardo. There is no doubt about that.

The story I always heard was the one of Richard Valentine Pitchford trying to do single card productions during the war with gloves on, because it was cold. He got mad that the cards kept coming out in bunches !

I think everyone before Pitchford were doing singles, not fans, with backpalm. For example Thurston...singles. The Great Blackstone had a nice routine with 5 singles with some nice subtleties. Channing had this sequence in his act as an homage. No, when Cardini (Pitchford) produced a fan, he wasn't trying to make a fan, he was trying to do singles because that is what everyone else was doing with backpalm. So the addition of gloves was just because it was cold in the foxhole, and the cards coming in bunches (fans) was an accident because of the fabric of the gloves. So, as far as the actual "split" I believe it was Cardini and that he didn't publish it because he was performing it, not trying to teach it. Just because someone invented backpalming doesn't necessarily mean they were also doing fans (or split fans) with it. ?

Once, while he was off duty, he was practicing some card tricks. Because it was bitterly cold, he kept his gloves on. A captain noticed him and thought it was 'dashedly clever' to do the difficult tricks with gloves on. Cardini got the idea of keeping his gloves on all through his tricks and still wears them.

His best card trick, producing innumerable numerable fans of cards from everywhere, was also started accidentally. While experts of former days were able to produce one card at a time, he was unable to get only one and kept getting several at a time. He didn't realize he had accomplished a more difficult trick until the same captain saw him practicing and remarked that he had never seen such quantities of cards brought out at once.

In the David Ben bio of Vernon, David recounts the story of Vernon's first meeting with Cardini, at a silhouette and magic shop in NYC. In the story, both Vernon and Larry Gray show Cardini split fans, squaring with Vernon's assertion that he knew about split fans before ever meeting Cardini.

Minor confusion: In the above story, David puts it at late July, 1926. In The Vernon Touch, Vernon at least twice mentions his first meeting with Cardini as 1924. Either way, it is later than the 1919 date re Ardo the Frog Man.

So Harmington invented backpalming but that doesn't mean he did split fans. Also, are we saying Vernon did split fans ? Just asking. Finally, as nice as LePaul's fans were, he didn't do split fans and fan productions...you know, backpalming, did he ? Finally, Bobby Baxter mentions the Frog Boy too. I still think it was Cardini.

Sydney --- A warrant has been issued by the Children's Court Bench for the arrest of a man known as "Ardo the Frogman," but whose correct name is said to be Cash, charged with failing to make adequate provosion for the payment of preliminary expenses of and incidental to and immediately succeeding the birth of an infant. He is about 29 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, thin build, dark complexion and hair, clean shaved, blue eyes; dressed when last seen in a brown sac coat, dark vest and trousers, and straw hat; an American; a vaudeville artist. Complainant, Evelyn Wilson, 89 Falcon-street, North Sydney.

Then in the Mar 17, 1915 issue ...

Sydney --- A warrant has been issued by the Children's Court Bench for the arrest of William Cash alias Ardo the frogman, charged with child desertion. He is 29 or 30 years of age, 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, thin build, dark complexion and hair, clean shaved, blue eyes; dressed in a grey coat, dark trousers, and straw hat; an American vaudeville artist. Complainant, Evelyn Wilson, 71 West-street, North Sydney.

The last mention I can find of Ardo in Australia is his appearance at the Tivoli in July of 1914.

He must have gone on the lam to America, where the vagaries of fate would have him residing at the same hotel as Vernon.